ComEd axes tree-trimmers

November 17, 2005|By Lisa Fleisher, Tribune staff reporter.

On Steven Williams' daily drives, he sees tree branches dangling dangerously close to power lines, and he feels frustrated.

Until June, Williams, 38, of Glenwood, had worked for a ComEd contractor as a tree trimmer. After eight years of service, he was laid off, one of about 85 contract workers who got the ax this year, including 20 who lost their jobs on Tuesday.

"There's work to be done. There's work everywhere," he said. "It boggles my mind."

After ComEd posted record quarterly profits, the company said its cutbacks in contract workers now total about 15 percent of its tree-trimming workforce, making Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn worry about the safety of the system. Tree branches are second only to weather as sources of power failures, according to ComEd, and they have the potential to cause huge outages, like the East Coast blackout in August 2003.

In the past, ComEd received a poor rating from the Illinois Commerce Commission on effectiveness. The commission cited missed deadlines, untrimmed trees and poor condition of trees in its October 2003 report.

Now, ComEd said, it's up to speed with all of its responsibilities, and the company said it works with contractors to determine staffing requirements.

"We have not cut back our tree-trimming efforts at all, and this will not affect our commitment to our ability to provide reliable service and tree trimming," ComEd spokesman Luis Diaz-Perez said. "Contracting levels and budgets have to be adjusted to meet the commitments and the progress of our work. This was an adjustment that was made to meet our current tree-trimming needs."

Outages caused by trees dropped 18 percent from about 6,850 annually to about 5,625 in 2004, Diaz-Perez said.

Despite those figures, Quinn charged Wednesday that the utility is still putting the state's power supply at risk by firing those he called the "heart and soul" of the utility. Quinn is backing a bill that would require ComEd to stick to the four-year schedule that governs tree-trimming across the state. Diaz-Perez said the company follows that schedule.

Quinn said outages rose 26 percent between 2001 and 2003, though ComEd could not confirm those numbers.

Dan Persky, Quinn's senior policy adviser and counsel, said the primary controllable cause for service interruptions is trees' hitting power lines. Until ComEd reduces that number to nearly zero, he said, "they shouldn't be laying off workers."

Williams, who said he can trim 20 or more trees in an eight-hour day, described his job as the "front line of defense" in disasters because tree handlers are the first ones on the scene to remove debris before power can be restored.

In wet, icy or snowy conditions, tree trimmers climb 100 feet, using chain saws and pruners to control the brush. It can be a dangerous job, and Williams has seen the deadly results of homeowners' trying to cut back their own branches.

"A centimeter [of a tree branch] could come in contact with the power line, and it'll send a charge through that limb and through your body and you'll feel it," he said, recalling the only time he was zapped. "It's a tingle, but you'll feel it, and you'll know what it is."

But he said he loves being a vital cog in the power system, and he takes pride in doing it right. Williams said ComEd will fall behind schedule if it keeps laying off workers.

With the holidays just around the corner, workers cannot afford to miss a day of work, he said.